High End Munich 2022. Vinyl devotees will have two new destinations, neither of which was ever known for turntables before: Esoteric of Japan and Nagra of Switzerland. Otherwise common to both is a heavy emphasis on in-house engineering resources and retail pricing that can pay for elite solutions and luxury finishing.
Being a big challenge to especially mechanical engineering which then forwards high gain and very low noise demands to designers of matching phono stages, it's the rare company which dares venture there. It can nearly be considered a badge of real engineering chops when a newbie to the sector is found equal to existing precedents. If you attend this year's Munich show and love vinyl, these two exhibits should be on your short list of things to see and hear.
Whilst for years it's been uncouth to invoke twin towers given 9/11, enough time might have passed to apply these two words to today's disc-spinning attractions? Surely they should represent towering design and engineering efforts? And of course in our space, TT has always meant turntable…
